Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Animal Crossing: New Horizons: Can a Game Take Care of Us?

Animal Crossing: New Horizons: Can a Game Take Care of Us?

Wardrip-Fruin, Noah

Hardcover

Series: Replay

Games & Activities GeneralTechnology & EngineeringGeneral Sociology

ISBN10: 0226840700
ISBN13: 9780226840703
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: Oct 9 2025
Pages: 208
Language: English

A moving, personal exploration of what we looked for, and found, in the gaming sensation Animal Crossing during and after the pandemi

Animal Crossing: New Horizons was released on March 20, 2020--just as a pandemic kept many from family, work, restaurants, and the rest of their regularly scheduled lives. At its height, the game averaged one million copies sold per day, as players sought comfort, escape, and a virtual means of connection. In this book, game scholar Noah Wardrip-Fruin, isolated with his family by both lockdown and disability, explores the power of this game and the mixed emotions of a player and a parent trying to make it from one day to the next--while his kids' obsession with Animal Crossing creates conflicts between them and pushback against family rules.

Wardrip-Fruin helps both Animal Crossing fans and newcomers understand the unexpected beneath the game's surface: like the story of the first Animal Crossing, codesigned by an absent father seeking connection; like the hallmarks of video game manipulation, from streak bonuses to game-determined playtimes; like the appeal of endless shopping, in a kind of safe capitalism; and, of course, like the character quirks of a raccoon dog, Tom Nook, who provides a world of both safety and strange paternalism.

For many, this blockbuster game offered a comforting world compared to a reality of danger. In this first entry in the Replay series, Wardrip-Fruin offers an absorbing investigation of a game's role in contemporary social life and a book that belongs on the shelf of anyone who loves or is puzzled by this Nintendo sensation.

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